Page 43 of A Rose of Steel
“Wrong with it? I don’t know of anything that can go wrong with an inhaler. It’s not a mechanical instrument.”
“It didn’t work,” Auntie said.
“The only reason I’d know that it wouldn’t work would be that it was empty or outdated.”
“I don’t think that happened either,” she said.
“You think someone tampered with them?” he asked.
“We don’t know,” I said, “because we don’t have the inhaler he used to look at.” Auntie Zanne just couldn’t control herself. I was going to have to speak with her about how to conduct an investigation.
“Who prescribed the inhalers for him?” I asked.
“And remember,” Auntie Zanne said, “I’m the Justice of the Peace. I’m sworn by law to find out what happened, and you have to uphold it by cooperating.”
“I voted for you, Babet,” he said smiling. “And I have every intention on being helpful. I just think it’s awful what happened.”
“Well, thank you for your vote. I will make sure I live up to the confidence you have in me.”
“Uh. Back to the inhalers,” I said and again side-stepped Auntie. “Can you look up the name of the doctor who prescribed the inhaler for him?”
“Of course, I can, but I don’t need to. When he was younger it was his pediatrician, Dr. Granger over in San Augustine, but during his last few years in high school it was Doc Westin.”
“Doc Westin?” I said, surprised. “Are you sure?”
“One hundred percent. But still I hadn’t seen one of those prescriptions since Bumper left for college.”
“That was two years ago,” Auntie said. She looked at me. “Were all of them from back then?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Would his mother give him something that old? It’s no wonder they didn’t work.”
“They didn’t have to work,” Auntie Zanne, “they just needed to hold the poison.”
“Poison! What kind of poison?” Mr. McDougal said. “It didn’t say that in the paper, only that cause was undetermined, but not natural.”
“Is that what you put on your paperwork?” Auntie said and looked up at me. “Undetermined?”
“I have to wait until the toxicology report comes back to make a definite determination.”
“Can you imagine? Another murder in Roble,” Mr. McDougal said. “And both of them at your place.”
“They weren’t both at my place,” Auntie said. I knew she was going to get indignant.
“Let’s go, Auntie,” I said and tugged on her arm. “Thank you, Mr. McDougal.” I waved bye as I pulled Auntie out of the door.
“So all we’ve discovered,” Auntie said fastening her seat belt after we got back into the car, “is that Delores used a bunch of old inhalers to care for her son’s asthma, and someone took one of those and filled it with poison.”
“I wish we had that inhaler. Then we’d know exactly what poison was used and that might just help us narrow down who it could be.”
“Well, we’re going to look for it,” Auntie Zanne said. “Plus, I thought you were sending a toxicology request.”
“I did, although there are some poisons you have to specifically ask to be tested. I checked all the boxes, but I don’t know what we’ll get seeing this is such a small place.”
“We are just as good as those labs up in Chicago,” Auntie said.
“I’m not saying you’re not,” I said, then shook my head. “I only wish I had it, that’s all.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about this, and with us needing that information, it might just be a good idea.”
